Instead, with reckless bravado considering her late state of mind, she went to the lamp and turned it up.  She felt his honest, stricken glance following her, and thrilled under it.

“You have not met my father?”

Ambrose “took a brace” as he would have said.  “No,” he answered.

“I thought very likely you would see him this afternoon,” she said with a touch of smiling malice.

His directness foiled it.

“I waited down the river,” he said.  “I didn’t want to have a row with him that might spoil to-night.”

“What a terrible opinion you have of poor father!” said Colina.

“Does he know I’m coming?” asked Ambrose.

“Certainly!”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing!  What should he say?”

“He has boasted that no free-trader ever dared set foot in his territory.”

“I don’t believe it!  It’s not like him.  Come along and you’ll see.”

“Wait!” said Ambrose quickly.  “Half a minute!”

Colina looked at him curiously.

“You don’t know what this means to me!” he went on, his glowing, unsmiling eyes fixed on her.  “A lady’s drawing-room!  A lamp with a soft, pretty shade!—­and you—­like that!  I—­I wasn’t prepared for it!”

Colina laughed softly.  She was filled with a great tenderness for him, therefore she could jeer a little.

Ambrose had not moved from the spot where she found him.

“It’s not fair,” he went on.  “You don’t need that!  It bowls a man over.”

This was the ordinary language of gallantry—­yet it was different.  Colina liked it.  “Come on,” she said lightly, “father is like a bear when he is kept waiting for dinner!”

The two men shook hands in a natural, friendly way.  With another man Ambrose was quite at ease.  Colina approved the way her youth stood up to the famous old trader without flinching.  They took places at the table, and the meal went swimmingly.

Ambrose, whether he felt his affable host’s secret animosity and was stimulated by it, or for another reason, suddenly blossomed into an entertainer.  When her father was present he addressed Colina’s ear, her chin or her golden top-knot, never her eyes.

John Gaviller apparently never looked at her either, but Colina knew he was watching her closely.  She was not alarmed.  She had herself well in hand, and there was nothing in her politely smiling, slightly scornful air to give the most anxious parent concern.

Under the jokes, the laughter, and the friendly talk throughout dinner, there were electric intimations that caused Colina’s nostrils to quiver.  She loved the smell of danger.

It was no easy matter to keep the conversational bark on an even keel; the rocks were thick on every hand.  Business, politics, and local affairs were all for obvious reasons tabooed.  More than once they were near an upset, as when they began to talk of Indians.